VHERMAG Meeting
Thursday 6 June 2013, 10.00 am - noon
George Lush Room, Monash University, Clayton
Minutes
Attendees:
Antony Catrice (Deakin University), Debbie McDowall, Jane McKinna, (La Trobe
University), Lisa Habermann, Andrea Meyer, Catherine Nicholls (Chair), Janine
Patience, (Monash University), Katherine Gallen (RMIT University), Kathryn Dan,
Adelaide Parr (University of Melbourne), Cathy Fyfe (University of Tasmania),
Matthew Thornley (Victoria University).
Guest: Andrew Waugh (PROV)
Apologies: Jan Getson (Monash), Sarah Brown, Jason McGlone, Catrina Sgro
(RMIT University), Dragana Mitrovich (Swinburne University), Katrina Dean, Fiona
Ross (University of Melbourne), Kirsten Wright (Victoria University), Anne Johnston
(William Angliss), Linda McKenzie (Wodonga Institute of TAFE)
Welcome, apologies and introductions
Cath welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made.
Presentation: Andrew Waugh (PROV)
Andrew advised that PROV was involved in business planning for the next 4 years.
Resources are likely to be concentrated where there are problem areas based on
evidence. Need to ensure agencies’ records are properly captured and managed.
PROV is trying to make standards etc. easy to understand as many staff in smaller
agencies especially are not trained in records management. Government agencies
are digitising information, but in a specific way, which will change in future.
Government agencies will not own much of the technology they use, as cloud
computing etc. takes over.
PROV is currently rebuilding their systems to better respond to user needs with
increased speed and reduced costs for transferring paper and digital information.
The IM3 (Information Management Maturity Framework) is due for release soon and
is a tool for senior managers to find out how well they are managing information
(including the systems and people). The tool helps to emphasize what is important
and where resources are best spent.
Another area PROV is working on is with structured data where high risk/high
importance records are held. PROV aims to support agencies with record keeping of
this data.
SIARD has been identified as the best tool for managing relational databases and
PROV needs an agency to trial this system. There is a real risk to organisations
when migrations occur and records are lost.
The VERS project hasn’t been revised since 2003 and is expensive to implement, so
PROV would like to change it (same principles but more modern technology). Will
continue to use it, but in future with look at encapsulation format (e.g. for
sound/video). Much of the metadata is not being used, so may be able to be
reduced.
The digital archive is currently being re-built. PROV is liaising with the Chief
Information Architect to consider what CIO’s need to understand in order to manage
their records (i.e. ICT strategies for organisations).
Institutional Updates
Victoria University:
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Have spent much time putting standards in place for compliance e.g. ensuring
information is placed in corporate systems.
Working on early stages of a new strategy for managing electronic records.
In archives, Kirsten is looking at AtoM to replace HDMS.
Have had a restructure and are reviewing how student records are managed
under their new structure.
RMIT University:
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Jason is interested in terms of references for TRIM champions/Power User
Groups, so if anyone has information, please forward to Jason.
Looking at a possible migration of archival records from the HDMS.
TRIM is rolling out more widely throughout the organisation.
Archives are now better resourced and staffed; some bigger projects are to
start soon.
University of Tasmania:
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University has a new CIO (Jeff Murray), who will provide leadership on
records management and future directions.
Another re-structure is occurring, with a shared model (6 hubs).
Re-engineering TRIM and upgrading to V7.3. After that will need to reconfigure and provide training.
Currently updating policies and procedures.
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Deakin:
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Have a new Director.
Reviewing governance including corporate planning.
Updating the corporate governance website.
Some ongoing quality issues are being dealt with in TRIM.
Currently digitising films/videos.
The history of Rusden (film/dance etc. in the 1970’s and 1980’s) is currently
being written using university archives.
La Trobe University:
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Busy with storage and disposal activities.
Have completed an audit of available storage facilities.
An exciting development is the use of TRIM in different areas for various
purposes.
There has been interest in the archival collection from a Nursing organisation.
University of Melbourne:
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Currently testing integration between web-based database (which
disseminates meeting papers) and TRIM.
Upgrading work is enabling more documents to be taken into TRIM from other
systems (e.g. HR system).
Training is continual as staff change. An online training package for HR
records is being developed.
For Information Awareness Month, Adelaide had put together a 12-step
program to help staff with their records (e.g. organising, disposal)
An interesting project surrounds the rebuilding of the Architecture building with
many requests for records as research archives are incorporated into the new
building.
Monash University:
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Janet is still in her Acting role, so Cath is now the Records Manager as well
as the Acting Manager of Records and Archives
A project involving online submission of Exam papers on TRIM is being
piloted and will be reviewed in July. Work is still being conducted on workflow
issues.
Standard Operating Procedures are being updated.
A Monash strengthening project in student files is looking to reduce the
number of paper records that are captured in TRIM. A reduction in
percentage of quality checking of documents from 100% to 10-20% is likely to
begin soon.
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The Gippsland campus merge with Ballarat University will have implications
for managing records.
Janine advised that Archives are currently handling a number of requests
from the Law and Arts faculties for their 50 year anniversaries. The
Microbiology department is also having a celebration later in the year.
RDA Working Party Update
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Adelaide advised that the work was on track and a first draft is due in two to
three weeks’ time. She thanked those who had provided feedback.
Other Business
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Janine asked whether other universities were having problems with portable
bar code readers and other systems which feed into TRIM (e.g. Callista)
following a Windows 7 upgrade. University of Melbourne (Carmela Gallo)
may be able to provide some advice.
Janine also asked if and how other universities were disposing of electronic
documents in TRIM when due for destruction. They can be deleted from
TRIM, but there are also back-ups to consider.
Kathryn Dan asked if anyone was going to AURA after the Canberra
conference and if they had any topics they wanted discussed. If anyone is
interested in discussing the classification comparison project, they can contact
Kathryn.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be hosted by La Trobe University (date to be advised).
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